Front Page  sports

Sunday, July 27, 2008

Fins' Playoff Chances All Wet

By Bob Christ
Of the Journal
          There have been many coaches in the National Football League who have turned moribund franchises into titans of the gridiron.
        In Dallas, Jimmy Johnson's Cowboys went from 1-15 in 1989 to showing off championship rings in 1992-93. Bill Walsh revamped a crummy 49ers squad from the late 1970s into the team of the '80s. Chuck Noll's first Steelers team was 1-13 in 1969. By the end of the next decade, he had won four titles.
        Then there's Bill Parcells, who has resurrected four franchises — the Giants, Patriots, Jets and Cowboys.
        Now, although he's the team's executive vice president and no longer prowls the sideline — in fact, he's been spending quite a bit of time at Saratoga watching the horses — he might be embarking on his stiffest challenge yet when he attempts to turn a 1-15 Dolphins franchise into a winner again.
        So, what are the chances of Miami making the playoffs this season?
        Based on the current line from the The Venetian race and sports book in Las Vegas, you'd get a payback of 4 1/2 times your bet if you think the Dolphins will make the postseason.
        League history, however, gives the Dolphins no chance.
        Since the championship game era started in 1933, there have been 31 other NFL/AFL teams that won one game or went winless in a season and didn't fold the next. In their next season, none reached the postseason, but six did have a winning record.
        The most recent winner was Parcells' 1997 Jets in his first season on the job. The team was 1-15 in 1996, but went 9-7 in the Big Tuna's debut. The next year the Jets reached the AFC title game.
        The greatest turnaround, in terms of wins, was pulled off by Oakland's Al Davis in 1963, his first year as boss on the Raiders' sideline.
        Oakland was coming off a 1-13 season in 1962 that included a victory in the season finale against a Patriots team that had been eliminated from the playoffs before the kickoff and therefore mailed it in.
        Anyway, Davis' Raiders went 10-4 the next year and built the foundation that would eventually lead to three world titles over the next two decades.
        Of the aforementioned 31 awful teams in history, the fastest any blossomed into a championship team was in two seasons.
        In 1945, the Chicago Cardinals finished 1-9. Two years later, they won the Western Division with a 9-3 record and beat Philadelphia 28-21 for the NFL crown.
        Parcells will be hard-pressed to match that achievement.
        For those of you out there who think Parcells can build a title team in one year, Miami's odds of winning this season's Super Bowl range from 100-1 to 150-1 on the Vegas Strip.
        The biggest long shot on most boards is Atlanta at about 200-1.
        FANTASY ALERT: Just in case you forgot about last year already, you might want to steer clear of Adam Vinatieri in the upcoming draft.
        He was the only regular kicker not to make a 40-plus-yard field goal last year.
        PATRIOTS REBOUND? The last team to go undefeated in the regular season but lose in the title game was the 1942 Bears.
        The next year they went 8-1-1 and took the crown. 41-21, over Washington, the team that knocked them off the previous season.
        HMMM: Randy Moss is listed as the 9-2 favorite in Vegas to have the most receiving yards in the regular season this year. Makes sense. Reggie Wayne is next at 5-1.
        What's intriguing is Isaac Bruce of the 49ers, who's at 350-1. Sure, he's an old man who turns 36 at midseason, but he'll be playing for go-for-broke offensive coordinator Mike Martz, who was his head coach in St. Louis for many of those terrific years with the Rams.
        Bruce had 55 catches for 733 yards last year in 14 games. Unfortunately, he won't be facing the 49ers' defense anymore. He had his best game last year with eight grabs for 145 yards.
        For sure he'll have some great practices, though.
        LASTLY: Next Sunday, Indianapolis will face Washington in the Hall of Fame game in Canton, Ohio.
        If you're a fan of either team, it might already be a case of "wait till next year."
        Over the history of this annual exhibition that dates to 1962, no team that has participated in this event has continued on to win the league crown.